Good Times Bad Times Guitar Lesson – Led Zeppelin
In this video lesson we will take a look at the Led Zeppelin classic "Good Times Bad Times".
"Good Times Bad Times" was the opening song on Led Zeppelin's debut album in 1969.
The main riff that Jimmy Page plays during the verse of the song is actually quite busy and a nice challenge. That riff was actually written by bassist John Paul Jones and contains numerous fast string crossings utilizing primarily 16th notes.
In the first Good Times Bad Times guitar lesson I will demonstrate how to get that main riff under your fingers quickly, in addition to all the other riffs found in the song.
In the second lesson video I will teach you how to play Jimmy Page's solo note-for-note!
We have quite a bit to challenge us here in "Good Times Bad Times". Besides the first verse riff, will also have chorus chords that use the thumb to finger the bass strings. Also, the second verse has a different riff than the first and it requires you to play some very large and fast shifts.
Just break all of the riffs down into sections to help speed up the process of learning them. They aren't very hard to understand, it just may take a bit of repetition to get them completely up to speed. Remember to always practice slow enough to keep it clean. Getting too fast too quickly only produces sloppy playing.
In the second lesson video we take a look at the solo. This solo starts off with Jimmy Page firing on all cylinders right out of the gate with some fast blues bends and double-stops.
He follows this with a rapid ascending triplet lick that follows the E minor pentatonic scale. There is a pattern to this lick that you will want to master before trying to move across all the strings like Jimmy does. This kind of detailed practice will make the lick much easier to play in the long run.
From there we have some more bends to contend with. In fact, this solo is quite the bending workout! There are a couple of times that Jimmy Page performs a bend of 2 whole steps.. OUCH!! So practice those sections sparingly so you don't get blisters on your fingertips.
Have learning this track which served as the introduction to the world of the legendary band Led Zeppelin!
Carl..
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Good Times Bad Times Guitar Lesson - All Rhythm Guitar Parts
Good Times Bad Times Guitar Lesson - Solo
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Another great lesson. Like Oliver Twist would say : “Please may I have some more”
Antony
Solos please!!
Any plans on teaching Achille’s Last Stand or In The Evening ?^^
Hey carl,
Any chance you can teach us the rover? Cool ass song, one of my fav’s by zepplin. Alot of cool riffs, Physical Graffiti in my opinion was one of their best work it screams out seventies
I will look into Frank! Thanks! Carl…
What I find which is absolutely amazing, I got really heavy into Theory chromatic scale, diatonic scale ,and all five positions of the minor pentatonic. I am watching you play this lead and for the first time I see where you are with the pentatonic scale, I am watching you playing two positions on a scale and I understood it 100% what you were doing and where you got it from I think my leads are going to get really easy. I am up to two and a half hours and night practicing I divide my practicing into 4 equal parts Theory scales finger exercises and learning songs, your course is absolutely amazing no more noodling around your theory is so good that that’s all I want to do thank you for such a good course
Really cool to hear Frank. It is exhilarating when you get those light bulb moments!
I am sure you are going to have many more as well! Keep up the good work! 🙂
Carl…
Carl,
I know you’re going through some of your older material and updating the videos. It appears you’ve left off a good chunk of the solo here and wondered if you could redo this one?